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The TikTok War

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Re: The TikTok War

#251

Post by callalex »

biztos wrote: post #160
puranjay wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in India, TikTok was massively popular in smaller towns and villages. The content was so different than Instagram. I really thought it was invaluable (TikTok is banned now). For us city dwelling upper middle class people, it gave a rare glimpse into the lives of people less privileged. And it wasn't maudlin or patronizing as a lot of narratives about the poor tend to be. Rather it was fun and authentic. I rememb…

Was there any reason to ban it other than “China?” Has anyone made an Indian TikTok clone, and if so has it got any traction? Seems like an obvious thing to do, if it was that popular.

Please read the article before commenting.

Re: The TikTok War

#252

Post by nemothekid »

toohotatopic wrote: post #215
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> give it up in a heartbeat for a Western replacement. It's important to recognized that it's not a coincidence that TikTok exists and is run by a Chinese company. In the West that replacement would have been immediately purchased by FB or Twitter and then summarily destroyed. This is literally what happened to the closest Western equivalent: Vine. The Chinese government has many faults, but unlike the US government,…

How can Twitter destroy the idea of Vine? Twitter can destroy Vine.co, but why is there no competitor with the same idea? The moment they had shut down vine.co, a new site with the same idea could have gone life and absorbed all the users. Why does this not happen? There are Facebook user groups, reddits and other social networks, even Twitter itself. A replacement for something that popular should be known instantly…

>* a new site with the same idea could have gone life and absorbed all the users.*

But that did happen - it was called Musical.ly, which is now known as TikTok (US). I don't think people realize that the US version of TikTok was preceded by an app called Musical.ly, which was also Chinese owned, but failed in China but had massive success in the US.

Re: The TikTok War

#253

Post by CogentHedgehog »

spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

[flagged]

Re: The TikTok War

#254

Post by blacksmith_tb »

scruple wrote: post #154
chosenbreed37 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you actually concerned that the Chinese government might get access to your data or is it a matter of principle? What do you think they want to do with it? If they really wanted it could they not acquire it by other means? I ask as I'm genuinely curious. I'm considering install it on my phone to try it out and see how it compares to youtube. I'm not dissatisfied with my youtube feed. Just curious as to how much b…

> Are you actually concerned that the Chinese government might get access to your data or is it a matter of principle? Both. > What do you think they want to do with it? Absolutely no idea. Much like I had no idea what Facebook was doing, or planned to do, with my data back in the 00s. I think we've been down this road enough in the modern era to be distrustful of any entity, especially a government, especially my ow…

Possibly, but it could be just be pragmatic - if I lived in the PRC, I would be very, very nervous about sharing some kind of unfiltered feed of my data with state entities. Living outside of the PRC, it's harder to imagine what kind of practical use they'd put that same data to - though that might get more exciting if I traveled to China at some point in the future...

Re: The TikTok War

#255

Post by akfanta »

netcan wrote: post #29

This tiktok "war" is, ultimately, changing the way people politicians think about media tech. With Twitter or Facebook, it's a lot easier to dismiss the magnitude of their influence. After all, they're not in business to influence politics. They just want to make tech & sell ads and make money. They don't care what becomes news, who wins elections etc. Benign commercial interests, that's all With tiktok and the chine…

"With tiktok and the chinese government's explicit approach of combining public & commercial interest..."

You got to be kidding me for blaming the Chinese government for combining public and commercial interest in this context. The amount of hypocrisy is astonishing. The banning of Tiktok, Zoom and Huawei is nothing but a political decision. It's amusing to see someone can blame this on China.

Re: The TikTok War

#256

Post by KineticLensman »

chvid wrote: post #233
drewmate wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are fascinating, and give me a glimpse into a world I didn't even know I found interesting. One major difference (that some may care about less than I do) is that the TikTok format is great for seeing a variety of content, but does little to help me create. Admittedly, YouTube is filled with lots of filler information (to please their own algorithms) but I could probably figure out what cameras/lights to use, s…

TikTok comes with a massive apparatus for creating videos.

These tutorials are about how to set up a still a light painting using a DSLR or mirrorless camera in a long exposure mode. TikTok is just being used to record the movement of the light during the long exposure, not to explain the settings (ISO, shutter speed, aperture, etc) of the still camera that takes the final shot.

Re: The TikTok War

#257

Post by _xnmw »

It's interesting that we are beginning to realize the paradoxical nature of "free speech". It's unfortunate that free speech cannibalizes itself. Since there are other powers with significant influence who can enforce their speech protectionism, it necessitates a response of the same kind, or risks collapsing free speech entirely in favor of an opponent. It's a power struggle, plain and simple.

Re: The TikTok War

#258

Post by analyte123 »

dirtyid wrote: post #228
analyte123 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something about Tiktok, whether the algorithm or the sheer volume of content, seems to discourage the sort of look-at-me envy-bait narcissistic posturing that is so common on Instagram. To be popular on Tiktok you actually have to do stuff (even it's fairly banal like dancing or telling stories), not just be (or pretend to be) someone. I found it funny that the author of this post is trying to defend liberal values l…

>Why is this? I replied to the parent comment by accident, but: That's the kind of content that survives the crucibles of Chinese censorship, "Creative and Joyful" opiate for the masses. This is an often overlooked aspect of Chinese social media / content filtering philosophy that has coalesced over time - block out the bad and divisive while elevating mundane joys. It's how the 50c operates, it floods the airwaves w…

This is a good point, although I suspect most people don't really want to see the toxicity. People are always complaining that they can't make certain things go away on Facebook even though they're constantly telling it "I don't want this". The one time I can remember where someone got "cancelled" on Tiktok, most of the criticism was carried out on other platforms like Twitter and Youtube ("Nurse Holly" if you're curious). I'd try to see how well Tiktok's recommendations can identify "toxic sectarian flame wars", but I don't want to clutter up my feed (which is 90% not in English anyway).

Re: The TikTok War

#259

Post by crazygringo »

narrator wrote: post #193
crazygringo wrote: post #188

This piece is ridiculous. Mainly: > What matters more in an ideological war, though, is influence, and that is why I do believe that ByteDance’s continued ownership of TikTok is unacceptable. What's implied but unsaid here is that somehow the CCP is going to fill TikTok with political propaganda that... a bunch of teens are going to somehow become influenced by? Sorry, but that's just completely far-fetched. Facebook…

TikTok users flooded the Trump rally with fake ticket requests. https://nypost.com/2020/06/21/tiktok-campaigns-ensure-hundre... The plausible deniability is easy. No one will ever find out if it was specially promoted. They could just throw up their hands and say that it all happened all by itself. The algorithm is a mystery and a trade secret! U.S Teens are making "I Love China" videos on TikTok. https://www.recruit…

And all sorts of nonsense happens on Facebook. But TikTok is almost infinitely less political than Facebook.

The Trump rally thing was a prank that was widely publicized on the internet. And the "I love China" videos seem to be a joke too.

You're going to find a little bit of everything on every platform. The idea that TikTok is somehow pushing Chinese ideology remains completely unfounded and baseless. It's pure imagination and conjecture.

If it ever does, it will be obvious and action can be taken then. But until it does, banning something like TikTok is simply blatantly anticompetitive and stooping to China's types of censorship. Again, we're better than that.

Re: The TikTok War

#260

Post by seebetter »

driverdan wrote: post #245
spinach wrote: post #227

It is hardly just Tiktok policing content with an agenda. Twitter, Youtube, Reddit are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas. Reddit recently banned a ton of subreddits that are simply critical of the idea that men can literally become women (they say it's to stop hate, but they leave up violent porn subs and other subs that hate women). Even subreddits like PCOS - a very serious cond…

> are particularly bad if you are conservative or have gender critical ideas I downvoted you because this is not true. Watch YT logged out and you will discover it quickly starts recommending far right videos, recommending more extreme videos as you watch them. As for "gender critical" and your following paragraph, people aren't being banned for simply misgendering people. It's intentional misgendering from hateful p…

That’s not true about YT wormholes pushing viewers into far right content.

And yes people are being banned for innocuous misgendering. And for saying only biological women are women. It’s not hate speech to say that.

Declaring things as true don’t make them true. Let’s try reasoning from first principles and acknowledging that principles actually exist. Amorphous relativism is a destructive force in society.

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